SCHOOL OF ONE | More teach at home

Single mom joins growing trend as home schooling's stigma fades

Posted By Ina Woolcott

By JAMES HAUG
REVIEW-JOURNAL

‘When her 12 year old son, Logan, was struggling to understand fractions, Chrissy Swanke ordered an un-sliced pizza and demonstrated the meaning of one-eighth and one-fourth by cutting sections from the pie. Arithmetic became the dinner-time discussion, Swanke recalled from her home. "That's the downside of home schooling," said the Las Vegas mom. "They never get away from it."

As a single mom, Swanke is half of the usual number of parents who educate their children at home. According to the U.S. Department of Education home-school children are 80% more likely than public school children to have 2 parents at home.

Although single parents who home-school are relatively rare, they represent a "small but noticeable trend" as home schooling becomes mainstream and options such as online classes have made the endeavour easier, said Brian Ray, president of the Home School Education Research Institute.

From 1999 to 2003, the number of single-parent households that home-school increased by 7%, according to the national statistics. Single-parent households represent about 18% of all home-school families. Because those figures are 5years old and homeschool support services have grown since then, some believe the numbers are even higher today.’

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The statistics above are for the USA. I do not know how many single mums home school in the UK, and I personally don’t know any - but I am one of them! :-)